My wife and I were a little surprised last night over the judges’ comments on Comfort’s fox trot. Not being trained dancers, we may not know what to look for, but we thought she did well. We also can’t help but notice a pattern of the judges being dissatisfied with her when she does anything besides hip-hop.
It’s not that we think she’s the best female dancer there. Heck, she may be the worst, because the others are so darn good. But being the worst of those four doesn’t necessarily mean being lousy, as it’s a pretty high level of skill and artistry overall. It seems when the others don’t do great, they get faint praise, whereas she gets condemnation.
So, is she truly doing that poorly, or are the judges picking on her?
I’ve been getting weary of the Mia-style contemporary, it is seeming incredibly formulaic and prop-dependent. Flail organically on a bed, flail organically on a door, etc. Without the props and makeup variations, it seems more like dance-school compulsories, especially since she doesn’t seem to let individual dancers have any room to color the routines with their own styles or personalities.
The bottom two guys surprised me, but once they had it narrowed down to those, it seemed pretty logical, just given how entertaining they were compared to each other (technical dance experience aside).
I was totally blown away. Mark having more votes than either Will or Twitch, unbelievable.
I rather liked the Mia piece with the door, Very physical and emotional. I’m not a big fan of contemporary, but I liked that one. Am really loving the hiphop routines this year. Extremely cool.
To me Katee is the best girl out there, she makes any partner look great. My Fave for guys is Joshua. Love his attitude and commitment to his pieces, gives it all no matter if he’s done a dance or not, 100% and then some.
Two more weeks, bah humbug. I so love this show.
I think the explanation for Mark’s appeal becomes more clear once you see the camera pan across the audience attending the show: almost exclusively teenage girls.
Of the 4 remaining men, Mark is the only one that really qualifies as the asexual, semi-androgynous, “Boy Next Door” type that’s sweet and cute and completely non-threatening. Although he’s had his share of good numbers (that business suit, lyrical hip-hop dance with Chelsea, for example), he’s never had a single performance that sizzled with actual, believable sexual chemistry. Will’s a nice guy, but still a Man. Twitch is funny and likeable, but still big and imposing.
But for the endless swaths of white teenage girls watching the show, Mark is the perfect Man-Boy type that they’re most likely to moon over and want to introduce to their parents. Despite being the least interesting (and least successful in adapting to different styles) of the four dancers left, I think it’s this key teeny-bopper demo that accounts for his continued survival.
Thank God Comfort is gone, at least. She seems nice enough, but clearly out of her league compared to everyone else (including last week’s ejectees). I was frankly tired of her A-for-Effort performances, her unbelievably redundant and boring solos, and her inability to nail any dance style that didn’t have HH as its initials.
Heh. Come Monday they will announce that Chelsea has suffered a freak accident and dislocated her hip, and cannot dance for a month. Filling in will be…Comfort!
Just to keep her string going. I looked back – do you realize she has been in the Bottom 3/2 EVERY SINGLE WEEK except week one??? Amazing.
More seriously, I found it interesting that a dancer who has pretty much been presented as an ‘off the streets’ hip hopper actually had four years of training in a whole lot of dance styles at that NYC Performing Arts High School.
Note: I’m not saying Comfort lied or is to blame for misinformation, it’s just another example of the promo-monkeys tweaking the information showcased to suit the ‘stories’ they want to tell.
Unfortunately, yes. I had the same reaction as you. To be fair, I think Mark was more surprised than anyone. I think he honestly believed that he would be going home, and was stunned to find out that he wasn’t in the bottom two.
Will was extremely classy about the whole situation. He made a great speech about how there’s no end to what you can learn in dance. Then he smiled and yelled over to the remaining contestants, “you show 'em what you’ve got!” (or words to that effect). I’m going to miss him.
I just watched both the performance and results shows on TiVo, and said almost exactly the same thing to my SO. It was something like, “People are stupid, and I don’t think I like this show anymore.” I was totally with you on Will being the best of the guys, but was torn between him and Katee for “wins the whole thing.” But I guess this was bound to happen when the show stopped being a dance contest and became a popularity contest. (This is the first season that I’ve watched it.)
I’m actually pretty shocked that Will wasn’t extremely popular. Everyone I’ve talked to loved the guy. He wasn’t my favorite (Joshua is) but he was close to it.
